Washington State uses "party preferences" for candidate's on the ballot rather than having candidates win a party primary. So a candidate can bill themselves as "Prefers Trump Republican Party" or "Prefers Liberal Republican Party" or "Prefers JFK Republican Party", whatever that means.
Serious candidate's haven't embraced the option yet--aside from one "Prefers Nonpartisan Party" candidate for Secretary of State no candidate with a chance of winning (that I know of) has yet deviated from "Prefers Democratic Party" or "Prefers Republican Party".
If party preference deviations caught on, it could be a very good tool for the sort of "more labels" factional approach Matt's advocating. Certainly I'd be more excited to vote for/support a "Prefers Moderate Democratic Party" or "Prefers Mainstream Republican Party" candidate if they had a chance of winning.
As a long time supporter of No Labels, I have to take issue with two things. First, the 2024 election was the first time that No Labels considered running a presidential ticket. In the fourteen years I have been a supporter there was never a mention before this. Second, No Labels sole mission (until the presidential thing) is to support a safe space for Democrats and Republicans to get to know one another, build trust, build relationships, in the hope that bipartisan legislation can be advanced. And over the years, they have solicited their members to support those elected officials who were dedicated to working together just as you are advocating. I think you have totally missed the mark in your evaluation of No Labels.
As a seasoned and accomplished branding guy, I'm interested in helping create new political sub-brands. Especially ones that align around innovative policies. PM me if you're also interested.
Is it just taken as a given among the Slow Boring crowd that the Biden administration and the contemporary Democratic Party are "extreme"? To my eyes, although the Democratic coalition contains some progressive elements and has committed to some progressive policy approaches, it still adds up to a totally standard center-left political party, whereas the Republicans have become a far-right cult of personality with an increasingly flimsy commitment to the very idea of democracy. In these conditions, is it really that hard for "moderates" to suck it up and vote for the center left? I mean, I take Matt's point about the usefulness of identifiable factions and sub-brands, I just can't get myself into the headspace of someone whose overriding concern in the context of contemporary US politics is the "extremism" of Biden and the Democrats.
This is a very good article. I support the Welcome Party and their modus to support moderate outspoken Dems that are opposing MAGA Rs. I think that they get the fact, that eg Larry Hogan seems to be ignoring, that it is not enough to be moderate but unless you push back against the more extreme elements of your party, you will be lumped in with that party.
Hogan would have to go all out against Trump and strong on popular issues that the Dems and the general public support, ACA, pro abortion, environment. Just as Biden has failed to oppose those within his own party who hold views contrary to the majority- immigration, crime, affirmative action/DEI. It is not enough to in a few statements say that he doesn't believe in 'defund the police' but go full throttle Fetterman or Eric Adams against the progressives who put social justice ahead of safety and with the latest pivot on the border, why not just state the obvious, that asylum is basically just a work around for getting in the country - easier than crossing deserts to just say 'I want asylum' when studies show that most everybody is coming here because life in the US for say a Venezuelan is better here than in Colombia.
When you poll people on who they trust more the Ds or the Rs on various issues, the Rs win on crime, immigration, inflation, just as the Ds win on healthcare, abortion, environment.
Here’s an embarrassing fact I’ll never admit to anyone in real life.
When I was a college freshman, I was a big supporter of No Labels. I literally traveled to DC for their first convention.
The group is even dumber from the inside than it looks from the outside. Its modus operandi is bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake; it possesses no policy vision whatsoever. It came out strongly in support of the filibuster, and would celebrate pathetically when Trump would give lip service to bipartisanship. When leftists talk about centrists being useful idiots for the right, I think they’re usually wrong - but not in the case of No Labels.
I would also strongly recommend supporting center-left Dems in extremely red areas if they show that their campaign has legs. Like this fella (me) Darren Staley in North Carolina.
Two points. First, as Matt points out, concentrating on the Presidency for such a project is not the most productive point. There are other first-past-the-post systems (UK and Canada at least) where there are fairly strong third and fourth parties and more. The way this happens is that the third parties are really part of a two-party system in certain districts. For example, in constituencies in South-Wast England the tow party system is the Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats. The Labor party has no chance as voters do not want to "waste their vote" on what is, locally, a third party.
A "no labels" type movement would best concentrate on non-Presidential races in non-battleground districts. In very heavy Red or Blue places this would be symbolic, but the goal would be to become the second party relating the nondominant major party to state of local third-party status. In the strongly leaning Red of Blue districts (where the non-dominant major might get 45% occasionally but never more) is where the "No labels' type group would be out win again relegating the non-dominant major to local third-party status.
A second point is that another strategy might be to form a "party-like" organization that treats the Republican and Democratic parties as just part of the electoral system. This part-like organization would have members strategically register as Republicans or Democrats and run its candidates within the two party's primaries. See the socialist Non-Partisan League in North Dakota in the 1910s.
Sounds like most people here don't realize that the problem solvers caucus was a no-labels project. Might be worth actually looking at what the group has accomplished before piling on about one failed idea.
I very much like the idea of sub-brands, but I'm not sure how stable sub-brands are under wide sense stationary ( stat nerd joke :) ) political conditions like we have now, even for a relatively engaged, high information subset (of donors and party activists). But it's worth a try.
Given the reality that the two party duopoly is pretty deeply baked in, does the Slow Boring commentariat think using some energy ($) for something, anything, other than partisan primaries (conventions or other things in some cases) followed by one major party candidate each general elections is worth effort? e.g. WA/CA style top two, or AK style top four plus IRV, or ME style partisan plus IRV (only likely to do anything much in a fairly closely split constituency like ME-02 with Jared Golden or lots of independents like some ME and AK election).
Here in CA top two has been mildly disappointing, but looking back I still think it performs better than looking in the retrospectroscope at the alternative history where we retained the standard system.
In some ways the top two weakens the party machinery since it encourages and even requires more development of individual political brands, but OTOH it somewhat enfranchises the opposite tendencies (R in the cities and most inner burbs, D in exurbia and ruralia) in constituencies that are otherwise single party dominant.
The fastest way to get "More Labels" would be to start implementing Proportional Representation methods. I know one city in my state has done so, and I have a Councilmember in the next city south from mine who is PR-curious, who I'm going to be introducing to staff from the Center for Election Science soon.
What about the build, baby, build faction? Build houses. Build apartments. Build power plants… solar, wind, and nuclear. Build transmission lines. Build factories.
This is very well said. I consider myself a center-right conservative (I'm also subscribed to The Dispatch), thus while I am nowhere near the median Republican, I am closer to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party.
To that end, I typically vote Republican and vote in Republican primaries, but I have supported primary challengers to Marjorie Taylor Greene (Jennifer Strahan), JD Vance (Matt Dolan), and of course Donald Trump (Nikki Haley). I also selfishly wanted to make sure I was "permanently barred" from MAGA...
Washington State uses "party preferences" for candidate's on the ballot rather than having candidates win a party primary. So a candidate can bill themselves as "Prefers Trump Republican Party" or "Prefers Liberal Republican Party" or "Prefers JFK Republican Party", whatever that means.
Serious candidate's haven't embraced the option yet--aside from one "Prefers Nonpartisan Party" candidate for Secretary of State no candidate with a chance of winning (that I know of) has yet deviated from "Prefers Democratic Party" or "Prefers Republican Party".
If party preference deviations caught on, it could be a very good tool for the sort of "more labels" factional approach Matt's advocating. Certainly I'd be more excited to vote for/support a "Prefers Moderate Democratic Party" or "Prefers Mainstream Republican Party" candidate if they had a chance of winning.
As a long time supporter of No Labels, I have to take issue with two things. First, the 2024 election was the first time that No Labels considered running a presidential ticket. In the fourteen years I have been a supporter there was never a mention before this. Second, No Labels sole mission (until the presidential thing) is to support a safe space for Democrats and Republicans to get to know one another, build trust, build relationships, in the hope that bipartisan legislation can be advanced. And over the years, they have solicited their members to support those elected officials who were dedicated to working together just as you are advocating. I think you have totally missed the mark in your evaluation of No Labels.
As a seasoned and accomplished branding guy, I'm interested in helping create new political sub-brands. Especially ones that align around innovative policies. PM me if you're also interested.
Is it just taken as a given among the Slow Boring crowd that the Biden administration and the contemporary Democratic Party are "extreme"? To my eyes, although the Democratic coalition contains some progressive elements and has committed to some progressive policy approaches, it still adds up to a totally standard center-left political party, whereas the Republicans have become a far-right cult of personality with an increasingly flimsy commitment to the very idea of democracy. In these conditions, is it really that hard for "moderates" to suck it up and vote for the center left? I mean, I take Matt's point about the usefulness of identifiable factions and sub-brands, I just can't get myself into the headspace of someone whose overriding concern in the context of contemporary US politics is the "extremism" of Biden and the Democrats.
This is a very good article. I support the Welcome Party and their modus to support moderate outspoken Dems that are opposing MAGA Rs. I think that they get the fact, that eg Larry Hogan seems to be ignoring, that it is not enough to be moderate but unless you push back against the more extreme elements of your party, you will be lumped in with that party.
Hogan would have to go all out against Trump and strong on popular issues that the Dems and the general public support, ACA, pro abortion, environment. Just as Biden has failed to oppose those within his own party who hold views contrary to the majority- immigration, crime, affirmative action/DEI. It is not enough to in a few statements say that he doesn't believe in 'defund the police' but go full throttle Fetterman or Eric Adams against the progressives who put social justice ahead of safety and with the latest pivot on the border, why not just state the obvious, that asylum is basically just a work around for getting in the country - easier than crossing deserts to just say 'I want asylum' when studies show that most everybody is coming here because life in the US for say a Venezuelan is better here than in Colombia.
When you poll people on who they trust more the Ds or the Rs on various issues, the Rs win on crime, immigration, inflation, just as the Ds win on healthcare, abortion, environment.
10/10 title and a solid article to back it up.
Here’s an embarrassing fact I’ll never admit to anyone in real life.
When I was a college freshman, I was a big supporter of No Labels. I literally traveled to DC for their first convention.
The group is even dumber from the inside than it looks from the outside. Its modus operandi is bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake; it possesses no policy vision whatsoever. It came out strongly in support of the filibuster, and would celebrate pathetically when Trump would give lip service to bipartisanship. When leftists talk about centrists being useful idiots for the right, I think they’re usually wrong - but not in the case of No Labels.
I would also strongly recommend supporting center-left Dems in extremely red areas if they show that their campaign has legs. Like this fella (me) Darren Staley in North Carolina.
Two points. First, as Matt points out, concentrating on the Presidency for such a project is not the most productive point. There are other first-past-the-post systems (UK and Canada at least) where there are fairly strong third and fourth parties and more. The way this happens is that the third parties are really part of a two-party system in certain districts. For example, in constituencies in South-Wast England the tow party system is the Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats. The Labor party has no chance as voters do not want to "waste their vote" on what is, locally, a third party.
A "no labels" type movement would best concentrate on non-Presidential races in non-battleground districts. In very heavy Red or Blue places this would be symbolic, but the goal would be to become the second party relating the nondominant major party to state of local third-party status. In the strongly leaning Red of Blue districts (where the non-dominant major might get 45% occasionally but never more) is where the "No labels' type group would be out win again relegating the non-dominant major to local third-party status.
A second point is that another strategy might be to form a "party-like" organization that treats the Republican and Democratic parties as just part of the electoral system. This part-like organization would have members strategically register as Republicans or Democrats and run its candidates within the two party's primaries. See the socialist Non-Partisan League in North Dakota in the 1910s.
Sounds like most people here don't realize that the problem solvers caucus was a no-labels project. Might be worth actually looking at what the group has accomplished before piling on about one failed idea.
I very much like the idea of sub-brands, but I'm not sure how stable sub-brands are under wide sense stationary ( stat nerd joke :) ) political conditions like we have now, even for a relatively engaged, high information subset (of donors and party activists). But it's worth a try.
Given the reality that the two party duopoly is pretty deeply baked in, does the Slow Boring commentariat think using some energy ($) for something, anything, other than partisan primaries (conventions or other things in some cases) followed by one major party candidate each general elections is worth effort? e.g. WA/CA style top two, or AK style top four plus IRV, or ME style partisan plus IRV (only likely to do anything much in a fairly closely split constituency like ME-02 with Jared Golden or lots of independents like some ME and AK election).
Here in CA top two has been mildly disappointing, but looking back I still think it performs better than looking in the retrospectroscope at the alternative history where we retained the standard system.
In some ways the top two weakens the party machinery since it encourages and even requires more development of individual political brands, but OTOH it somewhat enfranchises the opposite tendencies (R in the cities and most inner burbs, D in exurbia and ruralia) in constituencies that are otherwise single party dominant.
The fastest way to get "More Labels" would be to start implementing Proportional Representation methods. I know one city in my state has done so, and I have a Councilmember in the next city south from mine who is PR-curious, who I'm going to be introducing to staff from the Center for Election Science soon.
What about the build, baby, build faction? Build houses. Build apartments. Build power plants… solar, wind, and nuclear. Build transmission lines. Build factories.
This is very well said. I consider myself a center-right conservative (I'm also subscribed to The Dispatch), thus while I am nowhere near the median Republican, I am closer to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party.
To that end, I typically vote Republican and vote in Republican primaries, but I have supported primary challengers to Marjorie Taylor Greene (Jennifer Strahan), JD Vance (Matt Dolan), and of course Donald Trump (Nikki Haley). I also selfishly wanted to make sure I was "permanently barred" from MAGA...
Regarding WelcomePAC I agree that moderate donors should give it more money
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